


I will not change

by Resa_Saso



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: I will not change - Oops I'm a woman, Maybe I'll change after all, Other, Regeneration, Well - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 21:53:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11677809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resa_Saso/pseuds/Resa_Saso
Summary: Bill finds the Doctor again and just in the right moment - Because there he sits, drinking tea with his younger self, determined not to change again. But Bill brings an old friend and she's got deadly reason.





	I will not change

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted Missy and One to meet. I realized it most possibly won't happen. So I wrote it myself. I hope someone enjoys it! :)  
> Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, because I'm still only practising to write in English!

**  
  
**

It was late that night when someone knocked on their door.  
One Doctor looked at the other, insecure about what to do, but then the older one shrugged his shoulders.  
Death by four knocks already happened and he was already regenerating – Well, more or less – so there really wasn’t much to lose. He put his cup of tea back on the TARDIS table and got up to open the door. His younger self watched with a sceptical raised eyebrow. The Doctor couldn’t blame him – He couldn’t think of anyone who’d knock on his door in this cold nothingness either.

That’s why his mouth hang open, when there was no one less than Bill standing in front of him.  
Bill, but his Bill. No gaping hole in her chest, no Cyberman suit either.  
His Bill, like he got to know her, that huge grin on her face that he grew to love so much. She beamed in front of him and before he could even say a word, she had thrown herself into his arms.

Awkwardly the Doctor patted her back and then decided that ‘No Cyberman!’ – ‘Hey and not dead’ really was an appropriate hugging reason and returned the embrace with more enthusiasm.

Probably he should’ve scanned her. She could be an illusion, someone in disguise, some sort of thread, an enemy trying to get his way at him.  
But her smile had been so honest and so _Bill_ and he couldn’t help but trust his instincts, be completely convinced.  
After a long hug she finally let go of him, took one, two steps back to look him in the face and smile some more. It felt like medicine, seeing her like that and oh, wasn’t that ironic?

‘Told ya I’d come back!’ she said and her whole face lightened up with that sweet kind of love she always had shown towards him. He felt the ice around his hearts melt a bit and that was scary, because he hadn’t really known there was some, not this time.  
She frowned. ‘Though you probably didn’t hear me, did you? But I’m glad, you’re alive. I knew, you would be. No way, you’d do something as simple as that. Dying, that is.’

The Doctor smiled. It was a sad smile, but he wasn’t sure she noticed.  
  
‘I am not immortal, you know?’  
  
Oh, but what a sad way to say ‘hello, good to see you’. He had never been the conventional kind of person, but this was wrong, even in his ears. So he lightened up his smile a bit and took a step back, to let Bill in.  
  
‘Come in, come in,’ he welcomed her and then frowned, when he saw his younger version still sitting on the table, sipping his tea, looking extremely unconcerned.  
  
‘I’ve got eh… already a visitor, but that’s alright, you just ignore him.’  
  
Cold, green eyes suddenly bored into his own.  
  
‘Ignore me, hmm?’ the younger Timelord growled and the Doctor couldn’t help but smirk a bit.  
  
‘Well, you did ignore her, didn’t you? It’s only fair.’  
  
But the other Doctor already had slipped from his chair and went to Bill in slow, careful steps.  
  
His older self watched him with slight worry. He didn’t remember much about his first regeneration – and now he knew why – but he remembered how afraid he was. He remembered not wanting to change, to become a whole new person, as it was his first time. He had felt this a lot of times during his many lives, oh, he did now, but never as intense, as scarring as the first time.  
He suddenly remembered how it felt to die for the first time in his life.  
  
‘It’s alrigh…,‘ he started but the old man (young man, oh this was confusing, even for him) had already stopped in front of Bill and held his hand out.  
  
‘Very nice to meet you, young lady, I am sure.’  
  
‘Oh eh…’ Bill answered with a sheepish grin as she shook the offered hand. ‘Thank you, you too… I’m sure.’  
  
‘Anyway’, the older Doctor started as he reached for a fresh cup and poured Bill some tea. ‘Not a Cyberwoman anymore, I see. That did happen, right? I wasn’t in regeneration fever?’

‘It happened,’ Bill assured him and it really helped calming him down a little.  
  
‘Did I reverse it?’ the Doctor asked. ‘I can’t remember, but I guess I must’ve.’  
  
‘It’s not all about you, you know?’ But he could tell, Bill was only teasing him, with a bright grin and a wink of her eye. ‘My friend Heather helped me out. You remember Heather?’  
  
The Doctor frowned. Distant memories of quite a lot of water came into his mind. He nodded.  
  
‘The Pilot.’  
  
‘Yeah. She took me with her. Seeing the universe, you know? I mean, even more of it.’  
  
The Doctor smiled and it felt more honest now.  
  
‘That is fantastic, Bill.’  
  
He meant it. He had felt terrible after what happened to his young friend, under his protection, but gone for so many years, separated from him, turned into a Cyberman…  
  
This. This seemed good for her. She was happy, alive, healthy, human and she travelled the universe, safe and sound. He liked the thought. He could’ve taken her with him again, but when he changed, maybe she didn’t want to, maybe she…. No, but he wouldn’t change, would he? He wouldn’t allow this to happen, would stay the same and would stay alive. He was sick of it, so sick of losing people, losing himself just when he had found him.  
  
_‘Am I a good man?’_

His head hurt. He had asked himself this once, no, not himself….  
His vision felt blurry for a second but then he could feel two pairs of eyes observing him with worry and he straightened his back a bit.  
  
‘Are you alright?’ Bill demanded to know.  
  
Well, what would he tell her? He was dying, he was doing the one thing she had found to be ‘too simple’ for him. He didn’t want even more worry, disappointment or hurt on this young face, now that it was human again.  
  
‘Of course I’m alright,’ he smiled instead.  
  
_‘I am not a good man! And I'm not a bad man. I am not a hero. I'm definitely not a president. And no, I'm not an officer. You know what I am? I am an idiot.’  
  
_ He remembered this time without a hurting head. He had said this to Missy. Was that the regeneration kicking in, had it progressed without his knowing? Did it eat away his memories already? He didn’t want to change but if he wasn’t careful, there would be nothing left of him to change anyway.  
  
Missy…  
  
‘We are both quite fine, I assure you, young lady,’ the other Doctor stated with an energetic shake of his tea cup.  
A bit of tea splashed over the table. ‘Oh, oh dear…’  
  
Bill just looked him with a helpless look on her face and the Doctor couldn’t stop himself laughing.  
  
‘Like I said, just ignore him,’ he chuckled and offered Bill her own cup of tea. ‘Now tell me – How did you find me?’  
  
‘Heather did,’ the young girl explained while taking her seat next to his younger self. ‘She’s quite good at these things. Completely intuitive. I bet you have a large explanation, but please keep it to yourself. I want to keep some magic between us.’  
  
The Doctor hummed happily. ‘I have.’  
  
She gave him a look.  
  
‘I will,’ he assured her hastily and Bill grinned.  
  
‘Anyway. All the catching up and the tea is great, but not why I came.’  
  
The Doctor braced himself. His young friend sounded serious and he knew what was about to come. She would ask him about how he survived. Tell him, how worried she was. He would have to do it again: Find a way out, an easy explanation, lie and lie just to never see that sweet face in front of him crying in pity for him.  
But when Bill took a deep breath and looked him in the eye, the thing she had prepared for wasn’t asking him questions or blaming him, it was to take away his own fear:  
  
‘I know you are… changing. I’m aware there’s a process that your lot go through every time you die. I’m here to help.’  
  
The two Doctors changed a look, both of them openly surprised. Then the younger one snorted.  
  
‘How could you possibly help, hmm?’ he asked but Bill barely spared him a look.  
  
‘Well, not me directly,’ she told the Doctor, her Doctor, because that’s what he always would be for her, he realized and no, she wouldn’t come with him, not after… Oh but it wouldn’t happen anyway, would it?  
  
‘But another friend of yours can.’  
  
It knocked on his door four times and the Doctor jumped off his chair, thinking about how funny fate was sometimes. It didn’t exist, of course, fate, but it was still funny, thinking about how four knocks heralded his death once and now he heard them again and…  
  
‘Missy?’ he asked. He didn’t look at Bill, stared at his TARDIS doors, but his young friend nodded anyway.  
  
‘Yes. Heather and I found her in the woods of that spaceship, she was… alone, though.’  
  
‘Another friend of yours?’ the younger Doctor wanted to know but his other self ignored him, still staring at the door.  
  
Missy knocked again, four times, and he knew she knew about his past and possibly found it funny, but it really wasn’t, now that he came to think of it.  
  
_‘I don’t want to go.'  
  
_ He really didn’t.  
But he remembered dying in this incarnation and he remembered how he stared at the wall, at the spot the Master had vanished back to Gallifrey and how he wished he wouldn’t leave him here, on his own, dying alone, before he decided to go back in time, find his friends, say his farewells.  
Maybe this was his chance, late, oh so late, but real.  
He opened the door and looked in a face furrowed with worry and hurt. He startled.  
  
‘Missy..?’ he asked.  
  
It was her, it really was. But her dress was dirty, there was dried earth and moss and – _oh -_ blood on it, her hair was tousled and her eyes looked so… so… afraid? Was she afraid? Of what? Of what could she possibly be afraid, this woman that died a hundred deaths, fought a thousand battles, seen a million stars burn?

‘Hello Doctor.’ Her voice was hoarse, hoarser than he knew it and he didn’t know what to do.

He was the Doctor and he was helpless.  
He turned around to ask Bill for silent advice, anything, really, but she stood aside, her hands folded in front of her belly and her face blank.  
Fighting with tears, he could tell, he was as well.  
He turned back to his oldest friend and found that he had lost her attention.  
She looked at some spot over his shoulder and when he turned around – Oh, _oh_!

‘Well, aren’t you going to introduce us?’ his younger self asked with biting impatience in his tone.  
  
The Doctor couldn’t help but smile. It all felt surreal and sent his head swimming. Inside him he felt energy sparkle, rise and fall, ready to start burning him up the second he gave up the tiniest bit of control and there he stood, in the middle of a bloody mess, smiling.  
  
‘No introduction necessary, actually,’ he remarked.  
  
Missy couldn’t take off her eyes from his younger self, but that was quite alright, understandable, really.  
  
‘This is Missy, it’s short for Mistress, but you can also call her Master, she doesn’t mind from what I’ve known. Oh and... Well, this is me.’  
  
Bill behind them made some inaudible sound, but no one in the room took notice of her anymore.  
The younger Doctor stared.  
Missy stared back.  
The Doctor stood in the middle of it, slightly heartbroken, imagining how it had to feel like for the both of them.  
  
The first face he’d ever worn. The face that smiled at her like she was the sun, that shed tears when she became a black star, the face that left her with nothing else but herself and the madness slowly creeping up at her. Standing here in front of her, aged, having lived a whole life full of adventure, having seen all these things they promised to see together, dying now.  
This face, finally facing her.  
  
The Doctor thought back to when he left. How shame and force had nearly tore him apart. He needed to flee, needed to be free, needed to escape the one person he loved more than the universe, because he was scared, so scared to watch them fall apart.  
He needed to be away so badly when all they had needed was… him. And he would run, run so far away, take his grandchild with him, watch the universe without ever looking at it, because he was so ashamed, pretended not to know, not to realize how bad he should’ve stayed, should’ve taken Koschei with him.  
Pretended he hadn’t lost his sun.

Missy swallowed, serious.  
  
The Doctor blinked. Once, twice, then said with quiet voice, ‘The M… Master. So… Koschei, I presume?’  
  
Missy nodded, short and sharp and the older Doctor wondered when the last time was someone said that name to her.  
  
‘Yes, I figured. That pretentious name, you were thinking about it for a while, weren’t you?’  
  
Missy fought a smirk.  
The Doctor could see tears in her eyes and felt his hearts beat faster.  
  
Hope, he thought. Hope was so quick to make a fool out of you, but maybe, just maybe… Who would he be without his hope, anyway? It was the best part of him.  
And in the end, he had always been a fool anyway, hadn’t he?  
  
‘So you… you’ve gone the path you intended?’ the younger Doctor wanted to know, his voice suddenly sounded bitter and biting. ‘Treachery and crime?’  
  
Missy laughed and it was as cold as his tone.  
  
No no, the Doctor thought. This was going wrong, so wrong.  
  
‘And which way did you go, tell me? Surely not treachery? I’m asking, simply because I couldn’t find you. You were nowhere to be found, weren’t you, Theta?’  
  
Both Doctors twitched, one in shame, one in shock because of a name he hadn’t even liked, not ever.  
Funny, how these things went.

He liked it now.

Before his younger self could answer, his mouth already open, his face hard and angry, the Doctor stepped in.  
  
‘You’ve asked me before if she was another friend of mine,’ he reminded him quietly. ‘Well, she is.’  
  
The other Doctor startled in mid-movement and a sudden ray of golden, sparkling energy danced around his fingers, until he drew it back in.  
  
Missy looked at him for a moment and the Doctor could see her face darken, could see sadness creep into her strong blue eyes. He shivered.  
  
‘You’re regenerating,’ she stated and the younger Doctor snorted.  
  
‘Oh, you’ve noticed, have you, hmm?’ he remarked ironically.  
  
Missy smirked one of her sad smirks. It’s funny. The Master’s smirks were always the same and they always looked like they had been invented just for them.  
  
‘Scared, Thete?’  
  
Something was there, for a heartbeat, gone with the blink of an eye, but there was emotion on the old, furrowed face and the Doctor was sure, if he had seen it, so had Missy.

‘I am most certainly not,’ the old man retorted energetic. ‘I will _not_ change, I simply refuse to…’  
  
‘Yes, that’s very much like you.’  
  
The Doctor snorted.  
  
‘Will you let me talk, hmm?’  
  
Missy snorted back.  
  
‘No.’  
  
The Doctor tried to disguise a laugh as a cough and watched Missy and his former self stare into each others hard faces until he noticed that… Well, the other Doctor was ‘coughing’ as well.  
  
Oh Missy, he thought. You really are here to help me. But not this me, no, not this time.

‘Fine,’ the Doctor finally snapped. ‘Do give me your ill advice.’

Missy just shrugged her shoulders. ‘What good will it do to you?’ she asked. ‘Refusing to change? Being stuck as an old, grumpy man moving around in the speed of a turtle?’  
  
The Doctor was already about to rise and revolt, surely looking for the most adequate way to demonstrate how very un-turtle he was, but Missy just kept on talking.

‘If you refused to change, tell me where’d you be? Still on Gallifrey, dreaming of the universe, watching others living your dreams? Hoping I wouldn’t bore of your constant talking about Earth and all the universe has to give?’  
  
Well, he was listening now.  
  
‘If you refused to change, where would you go, Theta? You’ve already changed. I can barely see the boy you used to be. You’re an old, bitter man and you just look tired, so tired, Thete. There’s no craving for freedom, not untamed wideness of the universe, there’s nothing left but tiredness.’  
  
The Doctor stared at her wordlessly, seemingly looking for words. But before he could find them, Missy hissed and twitched. She let her hand fly to her breast, holding it for a few seconds, until she regained her composure and stood straight again.  
Two wide-eyed pairs of Doctor eyes examined her worryingly, but Missy just smiled darkly.  
  
‘This is what happens, if you refuse to change,’ she remarked with a deadly quiet tone. ‘I’m dying. There is no chance for me to regenerate. I’m barely standing straight now.’  
  
‘What?’ both Doctors shouted in unison.  
  
Missy laughed.  
  
‘Full blast,’ she explained shortly. Breathing seemed to get harder for her. ‘Laser screwdriver.’  
  
‘What is she talking about,’ his younger self roared. ‘She can’t be serious! This is a trick, a deception…’  
  
‘No,’ the Doctor snapped back. ‘I don’t think so.’  
  
Missy shot him a look that broke what was left of his hearts, filled with pain and… Rassilon, so much fear.  
  
‘It was me who did it,’ she whispered and the Doctor wasn’t sure anymore, with which of him she was talking to. ‘A younger version of me. So afraid of change he rather knows me dead.’  
  
‘This… this… this can’t be… this is some sort of trick, this can’t be right.’  
  
The Doctor felt tears in his eyes. Hearing himself denying the truth, it was like a wake up call, pain made his head swim, but he welcomed it this time, embraced it.  
  
_‘Change, and not a moment too soon.’  
  
_ Oh, everything would change, wouldn’t it? He needed to change if he wanted to survive, he needed to change if he wanted to still be able to look himself in the eye. He needed to change to live through a life full with changes, a life empty… Empty now. Empty soon.

Missy was the first to break to the floor. Some far away part in his mind wondered, how long she must’ve held death, certain death, away from her.  
Forever, he reminded himself. Death had never been able to catch up with any of her incarnations. It felt unreal that it should happen now.  
But oh, the pain made it so, so real.  
  
His younger version was next. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to look after Missy or finally gave in to the energy swelling up inside of him. He began to glow, heating up, but slowly as he still didn’t seem ready.  
He crawled over to Missy and drew her into his arms, rested her head on his lap. There were tears in his eyes, real tears and suddenly the Doctor wished with all he had left, he could remember this moment. Remember it as this young, scared self that would soon become a whole new person. Remember that his closest, oldest friend would forever be his friend, would forever be the one constant in his long, changing life.  
Would… until today.  
  
And he broke down. Sank to the floor in one swift move, to his knees, energy sparkling inside and outside now. Missy turned her head with the power she had left, tried to smile, tears swelling in her eyes.'  
  
‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t stand with you’, she brought out. ‘But I’ll fall with you instead.’  
  
The Doctor smiled back at her, it felt rusty and wrong, but it worked.  
  
‘ _Where I stand is where I fall.'  
_

He tried to say it out loud but he failed, so he hoped she could hear it anyway. There had been a time when she could hear his deepest thoughts. Maybe that wouldn’t change, too. Maybe, wherever to she went now, she would hear him, calling for her, maybe it would someday draw her back. Because a man so afraid of change, he would actually kill himself, couldn’t have changed so much to stop fighting death, could he?  
  
_‘People always get it wrong with Time Lords. We take forever to die. Even if we're too injured to regenerate, every cell in our bodies keeps trying. Dying properly can take days. That's why we like to die among our own kind. They know not to bury us early.’_

Oh no, he would not ever bury her. Even now, as she closed her eyes with one last, longing look into his younger version’s – Theta’s – eyes, he knew he would not ever give her up.  
  
Funny. While he felt pain and energy fight their way through his body, his younger self fought himself back to his feet, after betting Missy carefully into his lap.  
  
‘Who’s the turtle now?’ he whispered into her ear softly, so softly, Bill’s silent crying could’ve drowned it. _  
  
_ ‘I need to go back to Polly and Ben,’ he explained with a voice hoarse and hands glowing. ‘Make sure they’re alright. I’ve left them in quite a mess.’  
  
The Doctor tried to answer, tried to tell himself that he remembered the Cybermen, would’ve loved to joke about the irony of it all, but he couldn’t find the power.  
  
Seemed the old, grumpy turtle outlived the both of them.  
  
And so he just held Missy, while he regenerated and imagined that a bit of his energy found his way into her, might be enough, must be enough, while that part of her, that forever, through all of his incarnations, rested inside of him came to live and decided it was time for his biggest change yet. _  
  
_

 


End file.
